The Outrun By Amy Liptrot

Introduction

My friend Katie and I swap books we think each other might like. I first met her at a Pauline Murray gig and I worked for her in Oxfam after I engineered my redundncy from EE many years ago.

She is an excellent writer and poet, and is on Vocal and a member of The Vocal Social Society, but has not published anything here, yet:

I love the way that Grammarly flags up grammatical errors in the book link that I have shared above.

Anyway, on to my thoughts on the book. I am just over halfway through, but I am enjoying it, and I know I will finish it next week.

The music is "Man Of Aran" by British Sea Power, although they have dropped the British part of their name and are now known as Sea Power.

The Outrun

I didn't realise this was a memoir, and the opening prologue is very hard-hitting, dealing with severe mental health issues and family separations, and this is just the start.

On the plus side, there are some beautiful maps of Orkney and the surrounding islands.

Amy leaves Orkney and moves to London, and her addictions to drink, some drugs and sex are not comfortable reading. She goes into rehab and returns to Orkney. I didn't know the adjective for Orkney is Orcadian, so I have learned something from the book.

While I find the London sequences difficult, the Orkney sequences are mostly uplifting while referring to her parents' separation and her temptations to fall back into drinking, and she does lose her driving license temporarily.

She is grateful there are no 24/7 off -icences on Orkney.

From her, we learn about the wildlife and farming on Orkney as well as Celtic myths of the area. I love this as I try to correlate her stories with other books that I have read.

As it is a memoir, and Amy has written this book, I am sure it will end well, but I have to give it a top score.

Thank you for reading and I hope that I have piqued your interest.